


Gasoline

by Yokan



Series: The Other Side - Drabble Collection [2]
Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Band Fic, Exes, F/M, Smut, a bit of sweetness too I guess, complicated unresolved feelings, everyone is a little broken, implied infidelity, in which i give them a bed at last, kinda mature, light mentions of Klaus/Hayley and Caroline/Stefan, mentions of cheating, screwed up Klaroline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28235613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yokan/pseuds/Yokan
Summary: "He doesn't apologize, of course he doesn't. He doesn't care. He callseveryonelove. It's not meant to mean anything. Except it did, once, and it makes Caroline's stomach churn away inside, as she feels Klaus crawling underneath her skin like he never left at all.I've still got you."AH/Band!AU. Two years after Klaus walked out on his band -on her-, Caroline finds herself in her least favorite place on earth - New Orleans. She really did try to stay away from him, escaping an event just to keep off his radar. He finds her anyway.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: The Other Side - Drabble Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119494
Comments: 53
Kudos: 131





	1. Track 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coveredinthecolors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coveredinthecolors/gifts).



> About a million years ago, this was going to be a multichapter band!AU, but then I never got around to writing the rest of the story. I found this file lost around here and decided to post it as a stand alone drabble.
> 
> They were all in a band once, now Klaus is not anymore and Caroline has, allegedly, moved on. They were all extremely screwed up in this story and absolutely no one was ever wholesome or in their right mind, which is probably why I didn't move forward with the idea. Mature for language, mostly.
> 
> Sorry if you find any mistakes, they're all mine. Hope you enjoy it! :)

* * *

Caroline thinks she looks at least 10 years older as she studies her own reflection on the cracked mirrored wall behind the counter. Between dirty shelves full of half-empty bottles of alcohol, she sees huge black shades under her eyes, a drawn down curve across her lips, a scowl deepening the crinkles on her forehead.

She looks every bit as exhausted as she feels. And slightly drunk as well.

Ok, considerably drunk.

The bar smells like cigarettes and booze, with just a little scent of vomit to set the atmosphere. It's dark, old and reeking of disappointment and failed expectations. Looks like the kind of place where dreams go to die, matching her mood just perfectly. She fits right in.

There is a fancy party going on at some ridiculously extravagant hotel and she's supposed to be there. Well, that's an understatement. She's something like the guest of honor. Her band is, anyway. Circulate, shake hands, pretend to recognize the rich bastards, smile; routine stuff. The kind of task she could do braindead. Enzo spent the whole week bellowing in their ears about the importance of leaving a good impression, although it wasn't really her Enzo had been worried about.

It was Katherine. It was always Katherine.

But Katherine is probably parading across a room full of people she never met before, holding a flute of champagne in one hand, a cigarette in the other, making Enzo very proud while good ol' reliable Caroline fucked off into the night.

She blames this city for her misbehavior.

Caroline really fucking hates New Orleans.

" _Un autre, s'il vous plaît_ ," she tells the bartender in her awful high school French accent. The woman has a hard look in her eyes and her lips are curled in a grimy line. She looks at Caroline like someone who has exactly zero grace left in her for tourists who try to strike up conversation in French. She has no idea why she keeps trying to speak French in New Orleans. It's this city, she tells herself again. Messing with her head. The bartender casts an annoyed glance her way before fetching another drink. " _Merci_ ," she makes sure to add. The woman just ignores her and goes back to her chores.

The alcohol goes down burning, making her eyes water. It tastes as horridly as you'd expect from a bar like this, not that she had expectations to begin with. Caroline reckons that's the kind of thing you're supposed to be drinking when feeling eerie and gloomy, in need of a crash cart to shock some liveliness into the stillness at her core; it's supposed to be a punch to the gut, not a walk in the park.

A familiar sounding name coming from the TV behind the counter catches her attention. A tiny reporter with bulgy eyes babbles excitedly about something. Frankly, it all sounds like _blah blah blah_ to her at this point. Except for the part where the reporter mentions Vamps, and then her face is on the screen, smiling, waving, pouring her heart on a song while thousands of fans scream.

Caroline then remembers they have a gig the next day; it's why they came to New Orleans in the first place. You'd think that would be the first thing on her mind. Usually, yes. Her responsible side is telling her she shouldn't be having drinks of dubious quality and getting wasted the night before a concert. Enzo is going to murder her. But even that side is starting to get a little tipsy, so she just waves it off and drinks some more. She'll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

"What would those fans say if they could see Caroline Forbes now?"

Caroline raises her head and stops, her whole body going rigid, fingers flexing angrily around the glass in her hand. Every hair on her body stands to attention at the sound of that voice - of that fucking accent, always so smart, so eloquent.

New Orleans might just be her least favorite place in the entire fucking planet.

"How did you know I was here?" she asks, not turning around.

"I didn't."

"How did you know where to find me then? Did a paparazzi give you a tip?" Ah, that would be great. Caroline Forbes getting smashed at a dirty low profile little bar in New Orleans. Enzo would just _love_ it.

"You're not that famous around here, love." The way he says it... Like he's got any right to call her _love_. The fucking asshole. Thinks he's allowed to do whatever the hell he wants. It just makes Caroline want to jump on his neck, claws out. "Call it a gut feeling."

She sighs, tries to relax her posture a bit and not look so damn bothered. That's exactly what he wants. Caroline won't give the bastard the taste. "Well, then. You found me. Congratulations, Carmen Sandiego."

"Thank you." She can hear the smirk on his face.

He approaches, takes a seat on the next stool, eyes burning on her face until Caroline can't avoid it anymore. She takes another gulp from her drink - honestly, what _is_ this? - and then there it is. Stormy blue-grey eyes that send a shiver down her spine.

"Hello, Caroline."

"Niklaus."

Klaus grins a grin Caroline knows so well she feels suddenly sick. It's that subtle curving of lips that seems to find her defiance _endearing_ , that says _I know what you're thinking_ and _I've still got you_ , and it takes Caroline a lot of self-control not to punch the smugness out of his face, mostly because it's all true.

It's been two years, four months and two weeks since she had last seen Klaus Mikaelson - not that anyone's counting - but it feels like it was only yesterday that he walked out on them - on _her_ \- and went back to his precious New Orleans, to his beautiful French Quarter, where the sun shines brighter and the flowers are always blooming and the grass is a hundred freaking shades greener. New York is grey, boring, too far away from Klaus Mikaelson's ambitions. It's not good enough for a man like him. A naive delusional overachiever like Caroline isn't good enough for him.

It's not that she thinks about Klaus all the time - she doesn't. She's got her music, her career, her band. She's got Stefan. She doesn't think about Klaus. It's goddamn New Orleans that brings it all back in a rush and makes her want to throw things around and break everything and quite possibly Klaus as well. Especially Klaus.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

"Looking for you."

"Why?"

"Because you weren't at the party."

"Why were _you_ at the party?"

Klaus shrugs. "I'm a former band member residing in New Orleans. The company sent me an invitation."

"And you thought it was a good idea to show up," she says, not as a question, but an accusation.

"Why not?"

_Because we fucking hate you. Because we needed you and you left. Because I don't want to see you ever again, asshole._

Klaus looks so good and put together Caroline feels a little embarrassed. She's got a nice dress on, but one of her straps keeps falling off her shoulder and she's long given up on trying to look presentable. Her hair is messy, her make up is all smudged. She looks like she got on the worst end of a fist fight and was made to wear her defeat bright across her face. Despite her surroundings, she suddenly feels very inappropriate.

Klaus, on the other hand... He is elegant and polished and perfect. He's growing his stubble a little bit more now, but it doesn't make him look older or disheveled, but rather wiser and more refined, like a man who only knows success in his life. Caroline decides she hates the damn stubble.

She stays quiet and drinks again, moves the glass with her hands to see the liquid go around in circles; it's a welcome distraction.

"Why aren't you at your party, love?" Klaus asks.

_"Caroline, listen," Enzo says, with an urgent tone. "He's here."_

_"Who's here?"_

_"Klaus."_

_"Fuck."_

_"Yeah, fuck. But you're gonna have to deal with it."_

_"Who invited him?"_

_"I don't know, and it doesn't matter anymore, because he's already here. Avoid him if you want, but do not act like the crazy ex, ok?"_

_"Hey -"_

_"Don't start an argument. Just... Pretend you don't care. Be the better person. Can you do that?"_

_"Sure."_

_"Great. Now go and get yourself more champagne. You'll need it. I'll go keep an eye on Katherine."_

_Caroline turns around, pretends she's heading for the bar and goes for the door instead._

"It's not my party and I'm not your love, so stop calling me that," she replies drily.

"Sorry," Klaus offers, but the smile on his face says otherwise. "It's your band."

"Bonnie and Katherine can do the honors."

"Where's the new lad?" Klaus asks, a hint of something different on his voice, disrupting his well-practiced poise for just a split second. _So he knows,_ Caroline thinks.

"He's been part of the band for over two years, he's hardly new," she replies. _He's replaced you, you old rag,",_ she wants to add. _He's been replacing you ever since._

Klaus grins. "Where's _Stefan_?"

"He had some family stuff."

"Ah," Klaus says. "He's got family in New Orleans, doesn't he?"

Caroline doesn't say anything, just drinks. Yes, Stefan has family in New Orleans. Yes, that's the reason why they're staying in this fucking city for longer than strictly necessary. Because half the band is made of people who know people in New Orleans and they all want to spend time with their relatives and friends while Caroline withers and dies. Who cares?

Klaus' fingers drum a beat on the sticky countertop. They're long and calloused from playing the guitar, just like Caroline remembers. For a moment she wants to stretch out her hand and touch him. But it's only a moment and it's going to wear off. It has to. So she doesn't.

"So," he starts again. "From one to ten, how angry would you say you are with me?"

Caroline frowns. "I'm not angry." Even she doesn't believe her own words. She used to be better at this, saying things and meaning them. Again, New Orleans.

"Really?"

"It's been two years, Klaus."

"Then why won't you even look at me?"

Caroline does. "Because I don't like you anymore."

Klaus is quiet for a moment, his eyes unreadable. Caroline hopes he's hurt. It won't be even a tenth of what she felt when he left, but it's something already. She'll take whatever she can.

"So that's very angry, then?"

"You want specifics?"

"Please."

"A solid nine point two."

Klaus' eyebrows rise in surprise. "That's very high."

"What did you expect? You left us."

"I expected you'd be over it."

Caroline feels a stab somewhere. "This might come as a surprise to you, but not everyone is a cold-hearted psycho, Klaus."

"It's been two years, love."

" _Stop calling me that._ "

He doesn't apologize, of course he doesn't. He doesn't care. He calls _everyone_ love. It's not meant to mean anything. Except it did, once, and it makes Caroline's stomach churn away inside, as she feels Klaus crawling underneath her skin like he never left at all. _I've still got you._

"Why are you really here?" she asks again, because that part is still cloudy. She can't understand why Klaus would leave a room full of upper class, self-centered people like himself to walk the streets of New Orleans in search of a filthy bar after someone he walked out on without a shred of regret years ago - other than to torture her, that is.

Coming to think of it, that's exactly the kind of thing Klaus would do.

"I already told you," he says, calmly, like a teacher talking to a mentally-challenged child.

"No. Why were you looking for me?" she asks, heat finally etching into her voice as she demands for an answer. She turns the glass against her lips and drinks the last of it, the fire down her throat sending a jolt of renewed fight through her body. "You're not supposed to be."

Klaus looks at her, sighs wearily. "I can't -" he starts, stops, looks away; the uncertainty dancing coyly behind his eyes seems odd on him. "I've missed you, Caroline."

She laughs a hollow, dredged laugh that sounds more like an enraged whimper.

"You don't believe me."

"Can you blame me?"

"I do, love."

"Blame me?"

"Miss you."

"Oh."

They fade into silence once more; the unintelligible _blablabla_ from the TV joining the low clinking of glasses to fill in the space they leave. Caroline doesn't see the point here and therefore doesn't know what else to say. She spent two years either hating Klaus or trying to get over him through so many imaginary conversations she quite honestly ran out of what to tell him. She's not that good with spoken words, it's why she writes and sings them, but hardly ever says anything. Not anything that matters, anyway. Anything she really means. In her head, however, she spoke to Klaus, picked every single word carefully and made him feel as guilty and destroyed as she deemed he deserved to feel.

Now, there is nothing else left.

"I need to go to the ladies’ room," she announces, getting up and marching to the bathroom whilst trying to act as though she’s not drunk at all.

Ladies' room is kind of a bigger concept, though. This is more of a tiny dirty room, only a tad better lit than the rest of the bar, probably improvised as a bathroom out of sheer necessity. She thinks about how she fled a luxury five stars hotel to escape Klaus Mikaelson only to end up finding him in this shithole and laughs at the irony. If she'd stayed there, at least she'd have decent alcohol and more sanitary bathrooms at her disposal.

She gives up on trying to pee at that place and just moves to the sink to wash her hands and throw some water on her face, taking a little time to study her complexion once more. Under the pale light of the bathroom she looks even worse. Not at all like the rock star she's supposed to be. New Orleans sucks all the energy out of her, leaves nothing but the heartbreak she tries so hard to disguise with an optimism she has no idea how to feel when she’s here, in his turf.

The door opens and, unsurprisingly, Klaus walks in. Caroline's eyes flicker his way through the mirror.

"Are you a pervert now, too? This is the women's room, leave."

"How do you feel about sex?"

Caroline's hands stop moving under the water for a spell. Then she continues, looks for paper towels or whatever to dry her hands with and, predictably, doesn't find anything. That would be asking too much, wouldn't it? She turns to Klaus, waving her arms in the air to get rid of the excessive water and not wet her expensive dress.

Klaus is staring at her as though he'd said some sort of polite amenity, like 'What about the weather, huh?' or 'I like your dress'. Caroline forgot Klaus has this thing where he can be blunt like a rock to the head and still sound ridiculously elegant and charming while doing so, almost _daring_ you to resist him. It's annoying.

"Excuse me?" she finally says.

"Sex."

"What?"

"Want me to give you a demonstration on how it works?" he smirks. The fucking bastard _smirks_.

"I'm not sleeping with you."

"Who said anything about sleeping?"

"Is that why you came here? You needed a booty call?"

Klaus stuffs his hands in his trousers' pockets and takes a step closer. "I think we both need this to happen, and you know it."

"You're insane."

"Perhaps," he shrugs. "But I'm also right."

He comes closer to Caroline, so near she can feel his breath on her face, that familiar and distinct scent of _Klaus_ overwhelming her senses and making her shiver. She can't tell whether she's angry or anxious or frightened, but she's suddenly very hot.

_I've still got you_ , she can read on Klaus' thoughts, on the mischievous smile curving his ridiculously beautiful lips. She feels his hands tentatively reaching out to touch her, palms covering her knuckles; Klaus feels incredibly warm for such a cold fucker.

He gently pushes Caroline back against the wall, presses their bodies together, one of his knees pulling her legs slightly apart, as much as her tight dress will allow. He slides his hands up her arms until he's got them around her neck, making little smoothing circles there with his thumbs. Caroline doesn't know how, but her own arms end up around the man's waist, like the movement was involuntary, muscle memory, like they belong there.

Klaus still has her.

"Don't worry, love," Klaus murmurs, placing a soft kiss on her lips. "He'll never know."


	2. Track 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is the first thing I've managed to write after more than two months of a writer's block from hell. I hope it's good! 
> 
> It was written as a birthday gift for **coveredinthecolors** , whose comments made me weep! 💖 She also encouraged me to share this on AO3, so it's her fault this is being posted now. Also, thank you so, so much to **recyclingss** , who was beta and cheerleader while I was writing this, and who also pestered me with requests for this continuation since part 1 was finished. 💖
> 
> **Please, mind the tags.** This story is heavy on the angst, but there's lil moments of sweetness, too. Very light mentions of Klaus/Hayley and of Caroline/Stefan. This is also **NSFW**.

* * *

Caroline's heeled boots click against the expensive hardwood floors of Klaus' penthouse. Everything inside has the scent and the sheen of money - the furniture, the fabric of the curtains, the art on the walls, the sparkling crystal chandeliers. It's all very tasteful, refined, classic; it has Klaus written all over it.

"Looks like I just walked into the set of a Dracula movie," she comments flippantly, eyes taking in all the details of the ample space of his living room while her fingertips glide over the back of the leather Chesterfield sofa. She hates that she loves it.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Klaus says, amused dimples on his cheeks while he watches her from a distance, allowing her to roam free.

This feels too much like a test.

The penthouse is a millionaire upgraded version of the much smaller, much humbler abode Klaus used to have in Brooklyn, back when the future was uncertain and life surprisingly easier. Klaus' bank account was always loaded, but he liked to pretend he was like the rest of them. His snobbish tastes always gave him away, though. She can see he's plunged head-first into that trust fund life now.

Somehow, the new place looks a lot more like its owner than the old one. It's intimidating and upper class, with a hint of cynicism. It's exactly where Klaus was always supposed to be. Exactly where he _wants_ to be. He went to college for an arts degree he'll never use and joined a band like a person who takes a sabbatical. That was just fooling around; this is real life. Real Klaus.

The old Brooklyn flat had leaks in the bathroom, the hot water never lasted long enough and the pipes wheezed all night long, but Caroline decides she liked it better than this one, the same way she prefers the old Klaus to this posh, too-sexy-for-his-Henley's model. The shirts and the leather straps around his neck are the only thing he's kept, it seems. She pretends she doesn't notice.

"It's nice, I guess," she concedes after a while, shrugging.

"Were you expecting it to be terrible?"

_No_ , she means to say. _I knew it would be nice, I just wished it wasn't._

"I didn't expect anything," she goes for instead. "I didn't even expect to ever see you again."

Klaus makes a humming sound in acknowledgement, approaching her with slow, tentative steps, much like a wild animal prowling to its prey. "Life is full of surprises."

Caroline scoffs in derision. "I didn't know you were fond of clichés."

"There are many things about me you don't know anymore, sweetheart."

Klaus says it in a faux-gentle way, probably not trying to rile her up, not yet, but it cuts through her heart all the same. This calculating man with the penthouse and the Italian shoes is not the man she thought she knew like the back of her hand. The look in his eyes and the cheeky grin on his face and the raspy, deep sound of his voice stir something wild deep inside her chest. The familiarity stings. But the hurtful truth is that she never really saw beneath the mask.

"I don't think I ever really knew you."

Klaus' eyes flash, his smile suddenly strained, but he doesn't offer anything in his defense. There is none.

She turns away again, inspecting the items on a fancy looking rustic sideboard. Next to a crystal lamp, there are a few magazines. The New Yorker next to Forbes almost gets a snorty laugh out of her. Underneath it, however, is a copy of People.

"Keeping up with celebrity gossip now?" she sneers, waving the magazine at him.

His lips tick upwards again. "My assistant got it for me. I haven't checked it yet."

"Why?"

He nods towards the magazine. "Bottom left."

_Hayley Marshall has it all: new album, movie career and a secret affair_ , reads the story on the cover, right under a photo of a beautiful brunette and -

"You're dating a celebrity?" she asks, kicking herself inside for the indignant edge on her voice she couldn't quite disguise.

"Not really," he says calmly, taking a few more steps closer.

"Who is she?" Caroline's attempt to sound disinterested is weak even to herself, but she’s genuinely curious.

Klaus arches his eyebrows. "You don't know her?"

Caroline inspects the photo again, resisting the urge to flip through the pages and see what more the story says about this Hayley Marshall's _secret affair_. The name is familiar, but she is petty enough that she'll act like it's beneath her. Just another sold-out pop artist like so many others - soulless, empty, completely fabricated. The photo looks like a paparazzi moment - Klaus and Hayley are standing too close on a sidewalk, her mouth open on a big smile mid-sentence, Klaus staring at her with a smirk that makes Caroline's skin crawl.

"What does she do?"

Klaus tilts his head, giving her a look that says he knows she's lying. But he plays along, anyway. "She's a singer."

"What kind of singer?"

"The rich and famous kind."

"The crappy auto-tuned kind, you mean."

Klaus laughs. "She's popular with the younger audiences, I suppose."

"Hayley Marshall," Caroline repeats, rolling the name around in her mouth as though it was a foreign language. She puts the magazine away before she can't resist the temptation anymore. She doesn't want to give Klaus the pleasure of seeing her cave. "Never heard of her. So she's your current fling, then."

"We're not dating."

"People seem to think you are."

"I helped to produce her last record."

And - well, fuck. Caroline feels her chest cracking wide open, the pain and the shock all too real not to register on her face. It hurts more than if he'd confessed he was engaged to be married.

"You... what?"

"It's a hobby, not a job," he hurries to explain, sounding slightly more exasperated than he probably intended. "I still play around with music, whenever I can spare the time, which doesn't happen very often. Hayley is a friend of a friend, New Orleans born and raised. We met at a party. It started as a joke, really."

"Oh," is all the response Caroline is able to produce.

She turns away from his searching eyes, busying herself by staring at a painting on the wall with too much intent without actually really seeing it. It’s hard to focus with the way her fractured heart is pounding in her ears.

"There's no need to be jealous, love," Klaus says with ease, and she can hear the smirk on his voice, the way he's trying to lighten up the mood. It only makes her angrier.

"I'm not jealous, I just think you're an asshole," she snipes, casting him a quick glance. "And the fact you're cheating is the least of your issues."

"I'm not cheating. We're not together."

"Does she know that?"

"Of course."

"I remember you being too paranoid and possessive to be in an open relationship. That's _growth_ , I suppose."

"It's not a relationship."

"One night stand?"

"A bit more than one, but the spirit remains the same."

Caroline opens her mouth to spit some snarky retort at him, but snaps her mouth back shut. Suddenly, she's not quite sure what to say. She feels betrayed. Not because Klaus is having one-night stands with pop singers, but because he's creating music with her. It used to be their thing. They were a team, a duo, a perfect match. Klaus was the lyrics; Caroline was the tempo. Stefan is a decent musician, but it never really felt the same. The connection... It's just not there. And yet now she wonders how much of what she felt for Klaus was one-sided. It's as though nothing they shared was ever good enough for him. This - the penthouse, the celebrity girlfriend - is what he's into now. Blonde singer-songwriters gave way to skinny overproduced pop stars.

"She looks nothing like me," she says flatly. _It looks nothing like us._

Caroline can feel his eyes boring holes on her for a long stretch of silence.

"No, she doesn't," Klaus agrees, and for once she hears nothing but sincerity in his voice. It pierces her heart that she knows that tone so well, that it reverberates behind her ribcage.

_I've still got you._

She's taken aback by the unadorned look when she turns to face him again. It’s almost… warm.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks, his voice low and gentle, like it used to be when they were exchanging secrets and confessions under the duvets as they watched the snow fall outside the window.

It's hard to hold on to her resolve when it seems like she's seeing her own thoughts reflected in his eyes.

"Nothing you should know," she replies, though with a lot less fire than she thinks the situation warrants.

"Ah," Klaus mutters, comprehension gracing his features. "The _boyfriend_." Disdain is evident in the way he stresses the word, like it's a joke, or something that makes it all the more interesting to him.

Caroline wasn't even thinking about Stefan. Truth is, she's thought very little of Stefan since she set foot in New Orleans, including when she was with him. She definitely did not think of Stefan when she decided to say yes to the outrageous invitation on her phone. _Have a drink with me? My view of the French Quarter and the Mississippi is known to have inspired some rather epic tracks_. She didn't realize he meant he'd written those tracks and given them to some generic bimbo.

"You've come too far to be worried now, sweetheart."

He's right. That's the worst part. Caroline knows that in just about a minute, she'll be all over him again, like she was a couple of nights ago, against that filthy bathroom wall. She knew exactly what she was saying yes to. What makes her feel dirty is not that she’s thinking about Stefan; it's that she _should_ be. Klaus has taken up space inside of her, claimed it all for himself, and he refuses to leave. There's no room for anyone else when he's this close.

Klaus' expression changes completely as he takes up yet another step, invading her personal space now, bodies almost touching. The sparkle in his eye gives away the positively filthy thoughts crossing his mind. She can't help the heat that shoots down her lower body.

"You know..." he continues, his fingers grazing her arm, sparking tingles that shake her to her core. "I have thought about this moment many times. Of you, here, with me." His smirk is wolfish; Caroline really does feel like she’s being preyed on. "I've thought about you on that couch..." He leans into her, lips ghosting over her cheek, warm breath brushing her skin. "I thought you'd look good on it. Naked. Glorious. Divinely beautiful." He pulls a lock of hair behind her ear, his index finger tracing a line down her neck, to her collarbone, over her breasts, until he settles his palm on her waist. "I have never fucked anyone there." Klaus' lips touch her neck, and she feels him smiling when her breath catches. "I saved it for you."

She doesn’t resist when he kisses her. Klaus doesn’t ask for permission; he just takes it, her mouth, her dignity, all her sense of self-respect. Who is she kidding? She can be as petty and difficult as she wants, but the second she rang the bell outside the victory was his. The worst part is how hard it is to remember she’s losing when he kisses like this.

His hands slide up her skirt, feeling her skin and grabbing at her ass as he starts to guide her backwards, until her thighs hit the back of the couch. He’s already pulling her up, ready to sit her there, when she realizes what’s about to happen, and decides that, while she has undeniably caved in, she _will_ be taking some measure of control here.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get you into a more comfortable position, love."

Caroline's lips twist with scorn as she wriggles out of his grasp. "You're insane if you think I'm gonna let you fuck me on the couch like one of your whores - oops, sorry, _pop singers_."

Klaus takes no offense whatsoever, judging by the amusement on his smile and the challenge in his eyes. He always did enjoy the chase.

Caroline smooths down her skirt with a defiant arched eyebrow before sauntering away. She'll be damned if she has come to Klaus' fancy penthouse to be shown to the freaking _couch_.

It’s the longest corridor Caroline’s ever seen in an apartment, with several doors on both sides. A couple of nondescript guest bedrooms, two bathrooms and what looks like his office. Try as she might to show a marked disinterest, that last one draws her attention, and she lingers by the door for a spell. Black and white pictures of New Orleans on the walls behind the desk, impressionist paintings on the others; awards on the shelves sharing space with leather-bound books and records. All very elegant, very Klaus. It's the battered old acoustic guitar, standing out like a sore thumb in the corner, that makes her heart stutter over a beat. Caroline remembers that guitar. She gave it to him. It doesn't seem abandoned, though, or even like a piece of decor like everything else; it seems as though he still plays it.

She snaps away from the room, swallowing past the bitter taste in her mouth, and continues on her march down the hall with a little less sass and spring on her step. The last door before the master bedroom is shut, but she doesn't really have to go prying to know what it is. The strong scent of fresh paint assaults her from beyond the closed door.

The familiarity of it sinks low in her stomach, makes her insides twist uncomfortably. It ignites memories she had long buried beneath layers and layers of resentment and anger. Lazy mornings lying in bed while he sketched away on his pad. She could watch him for hours on end, enamored with how serious he got as his hands glided over the paper, like he was writing up the Constitution rather than sketching out her face - _again_ -, swearing that he was yet to get it right. He was always way too generous, in her opinion, recreating something much more beautiful than what she saw in the mirror. She eventually became so familiar with the line of concentration that always appeared between his eyebrows she gave it a name.

_Oh, look. Nik's come out._ Or _Oh-oh. I see Nik is firmly in place, someone's in a mood. Are we drinking or unloading it all on a canvas?_

She could never decide whether she wanted to smooth out _Nik_ with her lips or keep it there forever while she watched him paint, or sketch, or word-vomit on a piece of paper until his mood had turned into music. Rolling around on his paint-splattered floor and smiling to herself when she found stains in weird places hours later. Listening to him discourse for hours about the nuance of art and the secrets hidden behind strokes and color choices while they walked around Jackson Square, watching the street artists.

Caroline _does not stop, and she does not stop, and she does not stop_. Face forward, keep walking.

The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river in the master bedroom are obscene. Caroline pads with slow steps towards it, the flickering lights of the French Quarter livelier than ever across the dark expanse of the Mississippi.

She remembers loving this city. _Music, art and beauty_ , is how he used to describe it. It was all that, and more. New Orleans had soul like no place Caroline had ever been to. New York was lively, but it was cold and impersonal. New Orleans was... Bright. It felt lighter, like it didn't take itself too seriously, like it had time to laugh, while New York was all about steel resolve and working hard to chase dreams that you could never really see beyond the skyscraper horizon. New Orleans _was_ the dream, pulsing in vibrant shades of gold and green and purple, swaying to the sound of a lone jazz musician still playing in a corner of Bourbon Street in the darkest hours of the night. Being here now, though, she has to wonder how much of that was just Klaus.

She decides she hates the view, just like she hates New Orleans.

"Enjoying the view?" he asks, his voice smooth and pleased and teasing. Always teasing.

"No," she replies curtly, spinning away from the window. "It's disgusting."

Klaus laughs as she continues her thoroughly judgmental inspection of his bedroom. Caroline checks out every piece of furniture trying to decide what was his pick and what was likely an impersonal choice of the expensive interior decorator he hired. The paintings on the walls are likely the only thing he had a complete say on, and she hates that she knows exactly which ones are his.

She stops when she catches something on his dresser that she recognizes. A photo from his siblings - the ones he likes, anyway - she remembers from a small corner table and a cheaper frame. Klaus, Rebekah, Kol, Elijah and Henrik when they were all much younger. Caroline always loved that photo. She never really met any of his siblings - the Mikaelsons and the entire rest of Klaus’ life were two worlds apart - but the look on his face there... It was always so striking, a stark contrast to the man she knew. So open. None of the mystery, the cryptic smiles, the constant turning of cogs behind his eyes. Klaus gave her that sensation of being someone who'd stepped out into the world fully formed, all broad shoulders and witty remarks, even before. But the Klaus on that photo was scruffy and long-limbed and awkward.

And happy. Klaus was happy.

It makes her wonder if it hadn't been screaming at her face all along, after all, the signals that the Brooklyn apartment and the music dreams wasn't where his heart truly lied.

The second frame photo on his dresser is what causes her heart to skip a traitorous beat. It’s not something she remembers from his old apartment, but a memory nonetheless. Before the money and the record deals and the Billboard 100. Back when all they had was a dream and a few good lines scribbled across whatever piece of paper they could find.

They were happy. They were all happy.

It's hard to remember a time when there wasn't a part of her missing. Sometimes she likes to pretend she always felt this way. It's just easier. There has to be irony in the fact that she finds glaring evidence to the contrary in Klaus' millionaire penthouse. She can feel the two years of practiced façade beginning to crack.

"Taking a stroll down memory lane?" Klaus pulls her out of her annoying musings.

Caroline turns to him, ready to snap. Instead, what her mouth produces is, "Why do you have this?"

"Why not?" he retorts with a twist of his lips.

She refrains from scoffing. "Because you don't care?"

He turns his face to the photo, as though considering her provocation. An emotion flickers across his eyes, too fast for her to decipher it, but enough for her stomach to flip for reasons she thought she'd made herself impervious to.

"Whatever you might think of me, Caroline, I assure you I did care," he speaks after a brief pause. "I was a part of that band and the band was a part of my life."

"Bullshit."

Klaus sighs, for once seeming tired rather than amused. "You know, love, if you're just going to discredit everything I say with such vitriolic conviction, then I don't much see the point in this argument."

Caroline's smile is mean. "You don't see me for two years, then you invite me to your beautiful penthouse, but you don't actually expect me to have a thing or two to say?"

"That's the thing, sweetheart. I'm not entirely sure you _want_ to say anything. I think you're just trying to twist the knife in and draw blood whichever way you can."

"Why did you even invite me here, Klaus? What is it that you want?"

For once, Klaus actually looks tired when he sighs. "In all truth? I don't know." He pauses, probing dark eyes locking into hers. "What I'm wondering is why you said yes."

"Maybe I was just curious," she offers with a dismissive purse of her lips.

"Maybe," he agrees. "Or maybe it's more than that, and you just want to disguise it with abrasiveness and aggression so you can tell yourself you loathe me instead of admitting the truth."

Caroline's heart jumps into her throat when he steps into her personal space again, her thoughts screaming with the overwhelming senses assaulting her - his warmth, his fragrance, the way she can taste his kiss from the other night, alcohol and irony and broken promises.

"Here's what I think, love..." he starts, his voice rough, only above a purr. "I think you felt it, the second you set foot in this city... That thing you spent the last two years trying to forget, covering it up with hostility and revulsion. You thought it was broken. Damaged beyond repair. But it came alive, didn't it? It vibrated in your chest and started pulsing with your heartbeats.” He pauses, teeth showing in a dangerous smirk. “Our _connection_. And I think you're here because you want to chase it, because nothing quite compares. You and I, Caroline, are fire and gasoline. When we come together, we burn. It’s inevitable. The stars align, philosophy happens. _Music_ happens. You can feel it, can't you?" His finger grazes up her arm, from her pulse to her shoulder, his touch carrying electricity. "Under your skin. The notes and the words and the rhythm... Your body sings to mine. And two years was not enough to erase that. So I think, love... That you're here because, much like myself... You crave this feeling as much as your next breath."

Caroline swallows down hard, her mouth suddenly dry as a desert. Her heart is now a runaway train, punching against her ribcage as though it's trying to break free. There's no way Klaus can't hear it, no way he can't feel it, the way it thrums across her entire being, rolling off of her in waves - the nerves, the heat, the truth. Instead of flinching and slipping away, however, Caroline sticks up her chin, decides to face the demon - _her_ demon - with deep blue eyes and a smile that's all teeth.

"You're wrong," she states, strong and steady. "I'm here because you're in me, and I want you out."

And then she smashes her mouth against his.

The kiss is as angry and as biting as she feels. It's impatient and messy and devouring. She's prepared to battle Klaus for control, two indomitable forces clashing like lightning bolts, but Klaus actually allows her to take the lead, merely following her command and responding in kind. There's nothing soft about it, but it feels good - just like his hands on the small of her back feel good, like his chest pressed against hers feels good, like her fingers curling into his hair. She wants so hard to hate him, to hate _this_ , and yet the longer the kiss lasts, the more she realizes how much she wants him.

The other night, when Klaus fucked the living daylight out of her in that filthy bathroom, Caroline told herself that it was the cheap booze and the misery, a combination ordained to birth mistakes and disappointment. If she remembered every detail the next morning, it was only because her tolerance for alcohol is too high. She was inconsequential and drunk and - yes, maybe a little horny as well. That's all it was.

She hasn't had a drop of alcohol tonight. It's not one too many shots of tequila guiding her lips to touch the stubbled line of his jaw, or starting a quake inside of her when Klaus' hand slides down the curve of her ass, slipping under her skirt.

She wants him. And he wants her, too.

Fire, meet gasoline.

Caroline combs a hand through his hair. It's shorter and darker than it used to be and she finds it immensely pleasing that she genuinely preferred what it looked like before, when her pale fingers would disappear between his sun-kissed honey curls. But it's still long enough that she can grab it, and grab it she does, pulling his face back just as she feels his fingers adventuring under the lace of the nice lingerie she put on tonight. _I'm famous now, all my lingerie is nice_ , she told herself as she got dressed, all the while knowing how pathetic she sounded. It's one thing to lie to Stefan, tell him that she was going to see an old friend. It's even one thing to lie to Enzo, tell him she was having dinner with a jazz musician she was looking into collaborating with while he gave her that exhausted, grated look that said he _knew_. It's a completely different one to lie to herself.

She keeps Klaus' face a distance away from hers, ragged breaths meeting halfway, eyes locked in challenge while his finger finally slips between her folds, testing the dampness between her legs. Caroline shifts, breath hitching. Klaus' mouth draws into a slow, self-satisfied smile that is as sinful as it is amused. Just one digit rubbing against her clit, drawing agonizingly slow circles. She bucks against his hand, rolling her hips; Klaus tries to tilt his head, but she pulls harder on his hair, keeps him in place.

Her knees grow weak when he begins to increase the speed of his movement, heat building up inside of her rapidly. When he slips the first finger into her, the strangled moan that escapes her lips makes him huff out a laugh. She fists a hand on his shirt for support while her hips move to meet him, desperate for more, and Klaus obliges, slipping a second finger. Ever the asshole, he slows down when he feels her edging closer and closer, and she leans into him, muffling her grunts against the side of his neck. The sounds seem to do something to him, because he starts moving again and this time he doesn't stop until she is clenching around the fingers he stills and curls against her walls, thumb grazing her clit. Caroline's teeth latch hard onto his skin, her moan blending with his breathy grunt, half-pain, half-pleasure. _This will leave a mark,_ she thinks vaguely as she climbs down from the afterglow. _Good_.

When his arms close around her tenderly, rubbing her back into a gentle, intimate caress, everything inside of Caroline cringes. She wants so much to relax into him, bury her face into the curve of his neck and just breathe him in. And that's exactly why she pulls away. She'd rather be fucked against a filthy wall than have him act like he cares.

"You're welcome," he croaks.

"Not even close," she replies. She'll be damned if she came here just to get fingered. He has to be worth her while and the months of remorse and guilt she'll be carrying when she walks out of here. One orgasm doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Klaus stands obediently while she pulls his shirt over his heart, lifting his arms to help her; merely cocks her an eyebrow as she unfastens his belt, opens his zipper and pulls down his jeans and boxer briefs. His cock is rock hard, veins protruding around his length. She takes a moment before she stands up again, trying to disguise the way her mouth salivates. Klaus looks good whatever the situation, but he does things to Caroline like this, completely unadorned and undressed. Her petty hopes that two years would've made him less attractive are snuffed out by the glorious sight of his naked body. She never got to take a proper look at him the other night - they both kept their clothes on, as public bathroom sex dictates. Seeing those familiar lines on his chest, the tattoo that taints the broad expanse of fair skin, the dips of muscle on his torso - it makes heat drop into her core. She presses her thighs a little closer together even as she twists her lips scornfully at him.

"Hm. I remember you being bigger."

Klaus laughs. "Come now, love. That's beneath you."

She casts a look down his cock. "Yeah, it really is."

Caroline presses her palms to his chest, nails grazing down his body while she pushes him down onto the king-sized bed. Under the pale moonlight filtering in through his enormous windows, Klaus looks like a Greek god, desire burning like embers behind his blue eyes.

She takes a couple of steps away from the bed while she undresses herself, giving him a proper show. Klaus props himself up on his elbows, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he fixes that intense stare of her. She does everything a lot slower than she has to - than she truly wants to -, just to tease, and the way Klaus' hips shift with every piece of clothing she drops makes her smile grow with satisfaction. First her dress, then her shoes - one by one -, then her bra and lastly her panties. She gives him full ten seconds to take her in, but the tug in her chest becomes too much to bear when she realizes that his gaze isn’t just lustful, but rather aching, part here, part in the past, reeling back to two years ago.

Caroline climbs on top of him, hovering above, deliberately skipping his most delicate parts in favor of torturing him a little longer. She kisses his hip bone, the patch of skin right under his navel, leaving a wet trail as she moves upwards - his stomach, his chest, his nipples, his collarbone and those damned birthmarks on his neck that have haunted her nights and sometimes her days as well. And then she finally takes his mouth again.

A frisson shoots across her skin when his fingers wind through her hair, the other hand sliding down the side of her body, trying to pull her down flush against him, but Caroline resists. Her smile is wicked against his mouth, even more so when she pinches his lower lip between her teeth. Klaus' mouth is right on the edge of being outrageous on a man, and she remembers exactly how skilled he is with it. That cutting tongue of his serves many purposes, some far more pleasurable than others.

She maneuvers her body until she's kneeling above him on the bed, turning around so that she can look at him, his head cradled between her knees. Klaus looks up at her with arched eyebrows and a delighted smile.

"Taking control today, are we?" he taunts. "I like that side of you."

"You owe me, Mikaelson," she says, voice laced with venom.

"That's one debt I look very much forward to paying," he speaks in a throaty croon, turning his face to the side and kissing the inside of her knee.

Caroline lowers herself onto his eager tongue, her muscles tensing when she feels him lapping at her core. Klaus' hands snake up her legs to grip her ass, forcing her closer still. She throws her head back with a long moan, grabbing her own breasts, her nipples hard as pebbles between her fingers. Pleasure builds up fast as he flicks his tongue at her clit, her hips rolling down onto him as she fucks herself on his face. It's ridiculous how well he knows her body - where to touch, where to lick, how to drive her over the edge. With Stefan, it took them months and a lot of guidance until they were on the same page. He was well intentioned and not without his tricks, but something just refused to click, like their limbs were not made to mesh, pieces of different puzzles. Each time Caroline rolled onto her side with a less than satisfied half-assed orgasm she had mostly given herself, she invariably found herself wondering if she'd ever find someone who _fits_ the way Klaus did.

As she throws her head back with another loud moan she tries to stifle by biting on her own lip, bucking down on him, she's afraid the answer is still no.

Right now, however, she couldn't give less of a fuck if she tried.

She'd been so focused on herself she didn't notice he moved one of his hands down to touch himself, fingers wrapped around the base of a throbbing hard-on. Caroline leans forward to slap his hand away, replacing it with her own. “No distractions,” she commands, voice breaking into an unsteady rasp half-way as he curls his tongue _just_ so.

Klaus' impatient grunt reverberates across her body as she continues to roll against him, but he doesn't stop. It takes him thrusting his hips in the air uncomfortably for her to allow him the grace of moving her hand at last. Slow, so, so slow... Up and down, up and down, twisting her wrist just a tad, increasing the pressure. His tongue work is diametrically inverse to her torturing hand job: the slower she goes, the quicker Klaus sucks and licks at her, until she can hardly focus on what she's doing anymore, rocking back and forth onto him, her pumps becoming clumsy.

She feels everything inside of her clenching right before orgasm bursts in her core, and this time she cannot contain the scream. His name slips out of her tongue, and she can _feel_ him smiling against the sticky mess of her thigh, the bastard. She'll hate herself for giving him this once the afterglow has worn off and she can think straight again.

He whines when she releases him, moving away and settling down with her head on the pillow, shutting her eyes while she catches her breath. She hears the sheets hustling before she feels his warmth against her again, hesitating to open her eyes for a moment longer. Hands fists against the lining underneath her, attempting to resist how much she wants to reach out to him, wrap herself around him.

_I've still got you_.

_You're still mine_.

When she finally looks up at him, he's propped up on his arm, staring down at her with a question between his brows. His cock is still rock hard, pressed up against her side, and he must be _hollering_ for release on the inside, but it does not show on his placid expression. The unflappable motherfucker; always in control, always one step ahead. Caroline never wanted to mess him up quite as much as right now, fuck that impassiveness out of him, dig out the unruly man he buried under piles of money and the pieces of her heart he carries around like a badge of honor.

"Have you had enough?" he asks like he’s willing to let her go if she says yes, if this is all she came here for. His lips have a beautiful flush from working between her legs so much, glistening with her climax.

It almost dredges up a laughter from her, a terribly sad and pathetic one. If only he knew...

"Not even close," she whispers, her hand lifting up to touch the side of his face with a gentleness she was yet to show him. Klaus relaxes into her touch, turning to kiss her palm before he dives in for a real kiss. It's all it takes to restart the fire in her, hunger dominating both of them like they'd been starved for ages. In a way, they have - and she likes that she can feel she’s not the only one.

He slides a hand down her front, palm rough and possessive, grabbing at her as though he wants to mark her. She spreads her legs further apart when his fingers slide between them, gasping against his mouth when he slips it in. She's sensitive and spent and so, so wet, but she's ready for him.

"Are you trying to tell me you got some STD from your pop princess?" she breathes out.

Klaus pulls away slightly. "What?"

"Is that why you keep using your finger? I'm not complaining, it's a good finger, but -" She's cut off by a moan as he curls his digit inside of her. "I was kinda hoping for a little bit more," she finishes.

Klaus huffs out a somewhat disbelieved laugh. "Is there a way for you to use that mouth of yours for something less caustic?"

"Play your cards right and I might."

She kisses him again, relishing her own taste in his mouth, wishing it would stay there forever. That everyone else he kisses gets to taste it, too.

"No," he hisses when she tries to turn her back to him. He used to enjoy fucking her from behind, and so did she. Caroline blinks at him. "I want to see you," Klaus says, pushing her back down and climbing on top of her.

Two years and his weight is still so familiar, the way he settles against her, skin on skin and racing heart against racing heart, as though every curve of his body was ungodly cut to mold hers. Caroline ignores the pang of implications in favor of living in the moment, drowning in his heat and the musky scent of sweat and sex and _Klaus_ , the feeling of him inside of her again. He teases the head against her slit, heat exploding at the contact - once, twice, before he finally sheathes himself deep inside of her. And then he freezes, both their breaths hitching at the same time.

The whole world around them stops, waning away into distant noise. Just the two of them and time rolling back like its rough edges hadn't been tearing her apart, like it never meant a thing in the first place. In the depths of Klaus' eyes, Caroline sees lust and greed and two years’ worth of _need_ , with an edge of something else she can't pin down and doesn't really want to try. It starts a fire south of her stomach, and it shoots through her like a bolt. Her nails dig into Klaus’ back as she cages him between her thighs, and he grunts through gritted teeth, half pain, half mind-bending pleasure.

He puts one hand on the headboard behind her for support, lifting his torso to angle his hips just so, pounding mercilessly into her. With each thrust, rhythm picks up speed, and in no time at all they find the perfect pace as muscle memory kicks in.

Caroline sees stars when he slows down and rolls his hips in long, hard stabs that hit her just _right_ , lips parting in a loud moan that sounds a lot like his name. His satisfied rough breath is confirmation enough, but instead of being annoyed at the smugness, at her weakness, her body shivers in response, arching into him. Caroline wraps a hand around his neck and pulls him down for a bruising kiss, no finesse whatsoever, just to muffle the rest of her screams into his mouth. Their bodies slap together furiously, or maybe it's desperately, she's not sure what she's feeling anymore, grinding up against him, thighs clamped tightly as she feels another orgasm building up fast.

She knows Klaus is close as well, lost in a mad rhythm marked by grunting breaths. His muscles lock when he's there, and Caroline clenches around him when he finally lets go. " _Caroline_ ," her name rolls out of him in a rumble that lights her up.

He rides out the last of his orgasm in slow, deliberate moves, slipping a hand between them to thumb her clit until she's writhing underneath him, fingertips digging into him as she whimpers.

She closes her eyes when he lets his head drop, mouth against her neck as the world slowly starts moving again.

* * *

Katherine looked like a different person before the rehabs, Caroline notices as she stares at the photo on Klaus' dresser. It feels like a lifetime ago. It's hard to even remember there was a time before sometimes. The combination of cheap camera, fluorescent light and stoned photographer really shows, and the quality is terrible, but Caroline could make out the details on that picture with her eyes closed. She can easily see it from the bed, where she's lying on her side under silk emerald sheets, being transported back to a tiny apartment in New York.

They all looked different back then. Before fame and the sold-out concerts across the country - and, yes, Katherine’s rehabs. It took a toll on all of them. Sometimes it feels like it was so much easier to struggle and chase after a ridiculous dream than it is to live in it. Nobody ever tells you how barbed the edges on dreams are. How it's all nice and pink until you get close enough to see its teeth.

Herself, Klaus, Bonnie - in her terrible bangs phase, which she has now luckily abandoned for good - Enzo, Katherine. They were all so young. So naive. Had no idea what they were starting there. How that moment would shape the rest of their lives, for better and for worse.

“Genevieve snapped that photo,” she says all of a sudden, surprising even herself when the thought just tumbles out.

Klaus’ finger stops moving for a second, and then keeps going, drawing invisible pictures on her back. So many memories of so many mornings waking up to those wandering fingers as he traced imaginary lines on her skin. _“What are you drawing today?”,_ she would ask in a sleep-muddled voice even before she opened her eyes. _“The Mona Lisa,”_ he would say. Or _“Monet’s garden. Las Meninas. Starry Night.”_ Caroline would always laugh, both because it was silly and because his light touch tickled. She doesn’t want to know now, neither is she laughing. Not when those early morning masterpieces lingered on her skin like tattoos for a long time after he left.

“I didn’t remember that,” he speaks after a pause.

“Me neither. It just… Came back.”

Genevieve, the red-head bombshell Klaus was seeing at the time he joined their merry group of misfits after he got the flier from Enzo about a band. They were short on a decent guitar player - Caroline was good, and she could carry them for the most part, but Enzo was only ok and it was dragging them down. Enzo has many flaws, but an inflated ego was never one of them, he actually wanted them to go places. So he made the fliers and went around campus. Klaus showed up a couple of weeks later with his hot girlfriend. They were so annoying to look at. Caroline remembers her always being there when they started getting together for rehearsals.

“What happened to her?” she asks.

“I heard she got married,” Klaus says. “Had a bunch of lovely red-headed children.”

Caroline hums. Genevieve was _crazy_ about Klaus. Her eyes sparkled with near insanity when she looked at him, you could tell she had their whole lives together plotted in her head. Then one day, after she’d been absent from rehearsals for a few weeks, Caroline ran into her at a lecture. Genevieve’s beautiful face contorted with an anger that made Caroline’s insides freeze. “ _I hope you enjoy the six months of attention you’ll be getting,_ ” she spit at her with pure poison before storming out.

She told the story to everyone as though it was the weirdest fucking thing that had ever happened, but no one reacted with the kind of shock she expected. " _I'm more surprised you didn't get punched,_ " Katherine said while she rolled her cigarette. " _I'd punch you._ "

It took her a while to realize what everyone else already knew. Now she wishes she could forget.

She wonders if Klaus ruined Genevieve, too. If she spends her nights awake next to her husband, still thinking about the life she could’ve had.

“Are you happy?” she asks after a long stretch.

“Whatever happiness is,” Klaus replies in a bored tone, finger running down her spine.

“That’s not an answer.”

“That’s not really a question.”

Caroline shifts, turning to lie on her back so she can look at him.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Klaus props himself up on one arm. "Happiness is a most elusive thing, is it not?” he muses. “We spend our whole lives chasing it, and yet, do any of us even know what it looks like? Its contours and shapes... Its colors... Its taste..." His finger traces a feather-light line down Caroline's arm as he speaks, goosebumps chasing his touch. "If we don't know what happiness _is_ , how will we ever know when we find it?"

“So you're saying you don't know.”

Klaus' lips quirk into a crooked, amused little smile. "I'm saying that question is far too vague and imprecise and likely does not have an answer at all. There is no such thing as absolute happiness. I'd much rather chase tangible things. Pleasure, for one..." He begins drawing slow circles on Caroline's wrist. "Ambition. Success. Satisfaction. These are real things, with real measures. It's much easier to keep track of." He watches her for a moment, his eyes searching as his hand closes gently around her wrist. "Are _you_ happy?"

She snorts. "Right. Great deflecting technique."

"It's not, really. My answer might not have been what you wanted to hear, but it was honest."

"Because we're here to have honest conversations," she says around a dismissive eye-roll, trying to disguise her discomfort.

"No, we're here because I'm _in_ you and you want me out," Klaus quips back. "The conversation is just common courtesy."

Caroline feels the sudden need to shut him up - with a slap or her mouth, she’s not sure - rising with a vengeance once more. With a jerk, she releases her arm from his grip, shifting in bed to sit up, pulling the sheet with her.

"Forget I asked," she grumbles. "You're an ass."

Klaus laughs. "Do you want to know what _I_ think?"

"No, shut up."

"I think you _are_ happy." Caroline stops, fixing him under a dark look. That's not what she would've answered, but now she's curious. Klaus takes that as a cue to keep going. "Not always. Not all the time. But you _have_ found the thing that makes you happy. You've known it all along. Up on a stage, under the spotlight, with music pouring out of you... That's when you come alive, Caroline. That's what brings you the purest, most unbridled kind of joy. It's not absolute happiness, but it is a kind of happiness."

Caroline's waspy retort gets stuck in her throat as Klaus' words register. The way he sounds so sincere, the way he just knows her... She didn't come here to hear truth bombs from Klaus Mikaelson of all people. It’s too much.

"Were you ever happy before?" she asks. "With us?"

_With me_.

Klaus gives her a look, tilting his head. The twitch of his lips says _What do you want me to say?_

“There was a kind of happiness in it, too. So yes. But I don't regret leaving, if that's what you're asking. I was never going to stay.”

"Then why did you even start?" she demands, bitterness creeping up her tone.

"It was just something to pass the time. Didn't think it would go very far."

"But you stayed even when it became clear we were serious," she counters.

“I never lied to you.”

“Like hell you didn't.”

“You knew I wasn't going to stay, love,” he offers matter-of-factly. “You just refused to acknowledge it.”

Caroline thinks of the picture with his siblings. She thinks of all the times Klaus answered a question about the future with a cryptic smile instead of words. Of all the times he shut her up with kisses whenever she went off about where they'd be in five years. About how he wasn't even drunk when they were all off the rails, celebrating their first record deal. It was always _You are going to be famous_ , _You are going to perform at Wembley_ , _You are going to play on the radio_.

_You, you, you._

Never _I_. Never _we_.

It was there all along. His goodbye note.

Klaus was always leaving between the lines.

The realization does nothing to ease the knot in the back of her throat, quite the opposite. It only makes it rough enough to choke her.

"Why?" she asks. "Why did you stay for so long if you knew you wouldn't go on?"

Klaus' lips curl into the softest of smiles, something almost sad in the way he peers at her. "All this time and you still can't tell?"

When he reaches out, fingertips brushing her chin until his hand is cupping her face, everything inside of Caroline screams. The easy intimacy scares her much more than the sex, mind-blowing though it might be. It's much easier to fall back into it than it should be. She flinches, but doesn't steer away.

"It was you, Caroline," Klaus says. "It was always you. It's why I stayed with the band when I knew I shouldn't have. Why it tore me apart to leave when that was never what I wanted for myself. Because it was _your_ dream. Your whole life. And I knew I didn't belong there. It was a rather heartbreaking realization, accepting that you and I were on borrowed time. It took time to let go."

"Funny," she says without a hint of mirth. "You used to always be there whenever I thought of my dreams."

"We were quite a pair, weren't we?"

Caroline pauses. "Yes. We were."

Klaus leans forward, his face hovering close before he finally presses a chaste kiss to her lips. Caroline mashes her eyes shut, her hands dropping the sheets she'd been holding close to her chest in favor of closing around his arms. It's the closest she's felt to Klaus all night, the most vulnerable she's been rendered.

"You are in me, too," he whispers, lips brushing against hers. She can feel it in the hitch on his breath that he is just as vulnerable as her. "You weren't the only one seeking a purge."

"How did that work out for you?"

Klaus laughs, and it rattles something deep inside of Caroline's chest. Bruised and tender, but suddenly filled with warmth.

"Me too," she says, before kissing him again.

**_The End_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! 😅 If you've made it this far, thanks very much for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed it! :) If you did, please consider leaving me a kudos and dropping me a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Writing sexy smut scenes is definitely out of my comfort zone, so I hope I did a fine job here. I always end up on smut-with-feelings. 🤣
> 
> I also had **Coney Island by Taylor Swift feat. The National** screaming in my head while writing this, if you'd like some soundtrack!

**Author's Note:**

> Would very much love to hear your thoughts! If you enjoyed it, please leave kudos or a comment! Cheers and thanks very much for reading! ❤️


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